Thursday, September 7, 2017

It's an album of instrumental tracks with calming sounds and guitar. I recorded it to help stressed out people calm down. I use it at work every day. It helps me calm down.

Here's the youtube video playlist:

That's pretty much all you need to know about "atmospheric".

If you're at all like me in that you like to know the story behind things like this album keep reading. The rest of this article is going to be just that. I'm going to go on and on about this album because I really like it. I'm proud of this album and want to talk about it.

It all started with this:

This is "Lynn Monologues". A 5-song EP of solo guitar I recorded a couple years ago (2015).

I decided to give myself a couple of restrictions because... I guess because I keep hearing that having limits helps fuel creativity. I did the same thing with my comic "IMPENDING DOOM!" which I thought was pretty neat, but I'm biased.

Restriction 1: The background sounds for each song (except the bonus track) had to be natural sounds that I didn't doctor too much.

I tried to make all of these tracks soothing. I picked noises I thought could help whoever listens to them calm down, fall asleep, meditate, or whatever they want to do with calming music. (Just... you don't need to let me know what you do while listening to it...)

As I recorded I realized that I wanted to make music that could be on a loop in the background of a level in a video game:

or in the background at a section of a theme park:

Or anywhere that needs a bit of atmosphere.

I ended up using a lot of water sounds. I have a few other ideas that I didn't include... maybe I'll make a sequel album.

For the guitar parts I tried to write riffs that sounded nice, weren't too raucous or loud, and could help soothe without distracting too much from whatever was going on. (again, I don't need to know)

Huh... I thought I had a lot more to say about this album, but I think that's all I got.

I liked this idea too, but I prefer the idea of doing something so often it changes the environment you do it in.

This was the beginning of my fascination!

In elementary through middle school we had neighbors who would walk through our backyard every morning on their way to school. They stuck mostly to the same path. By the time we moved into that house there was already a path worn where they walked.

This path reminded me of Scrooge's worry room.

Now that the new DuckTales is coming out soon (I really enjoyed the first episode!) I decided to start reading through the collections of Scrooge McDuck comics that are in the public library.

They have pictures of his worry room too!

(pics taken by me!)

I guess the second picture isn't the Worry Room, but it's the same concept.

I still love this idea and would still like to have a Worry Room of my own! Since I doubt I'll ever get to swim in a ball pit money bin, maybe I'll have to figure out a Worry Room...